Late Quaternary solifluction sheets in the British uplands

Solifluction sheets are large-scale and extensive valley-floor and valley-side landforms developed widely in the British Isles from mass-wasting of glacial and periglacial sediments during late-glacial times. We describe their geographical distribution and review the processes that have led to their development. We use data from the Cheviot Hills, the one site in the British Isles where sedimentology and optically stimulated luminescence dating have been combined, to assess their age and nature of deposition. We also present data from central Wales where a new mapping and resistivity survey has reconstructed the nature of valley-side solifluction sheets. We explore the relative lack of recent research on these landforms and argue that solifluction sheets represent a clear example of how upland geomorphological systems have responded to late-glacial climate change. We end by identifying a number of areas where research on these enigmatic features could be focussed, including better understanding of their distribution, sedimentology and age.     

The ‘critical inclination’: Another look

The occurrence and uniqueness of the critical inclination in satellite theory is discussed.An infinite set of canonical transformations in Hill variables are shown to exist whereby the first order secular part of the disturbing function can be changed into an alternative form. As a result of such a transformation the critical inclination can become (a)any other real or complex inclination or a function independent of the satellite's orbital inclination and (b) a function dependent on the semi-major axis, eccentricity and inclination of the satellite's orbit. It is also shown that all transformations of types (a) and (b) are only valid for short intervals of time of the order of a few satellite revolutions. Furthermore if such transformations are modified so that they become valid for greater intervals of time, then the resulting solutions in all cases containno singular divisor other than the critical inclination.It is concluded that the singularity at the critical inclination is unique and that it represents an actual physical resonance rather than something resulting from the method of solution or the type of variable used in the analysis. This conclusion is supported by numerical evidence which shows that a satellite's perigee height does suffer resonant changes when the orbital inclination is equal to the critical inclination of 63.°4.     

A solar flare X-ray polarimeter for the space shuttle

We have recently built and tested an instrument designed to measure the polarization of the hard (5–30 keV) X-ray emission from solar flares, and thereby to investigate the energy release mechanism and constrain flare models. In particular, these measurements will help to determine whether hard X-ray bursts are produced by nonthermal or by thermal electrons. The polarimeter makes use of the angular dependence of Thomson scattering from targets of metallic lithium. It has an energy resolution of a few keV, a time resolution of 5 s, and sufficient sensitivity to measure polarization levels (3) of a few percent in about 10 s for a moderate strength solar flare. The instrumental polarization has been directly measured and found to be within the design goal of 1%. This polarimeter is scheduled to be flown as part of the OSS-1 pallet on an early Space Shuttle mission.     

Damping of geomagnetic pulsations by the ionosphere

A significant sink of geomagnetic pulsation energy is due to Joule dissipation in the ionosphere. To investigate this we have computed the damping experienced by standing Alfvén waves in a dipole magnetic field. Both the uncoupled poloidal and toroidal modes are considered with Joule dissipation being introduced through a boundary condition which relates the electric and magnetic field strengths at the ionosphere, viz: $\text{4πΣ}{}_{\mathrm{p}}\text{E}\text{c}\text{= b,}\text{where}\text{Σ}{}_{\mathrm{p}}$ is the height integrated Pederson conductivity. The damping rates are strongly dependent on the ionospheric conductivity and we find that typically the normalized damping rate, $\text{γ}\text{ω}\text{,}\text{is}\text{～0.1}$ for nightside values of conductivity and ～0.01 for the dayside. This would account for the observed scale of bandwidths in pulsation signals. Away from regions of extreme damping we find γ ∝ L^?1Σ_p^?1.     

A compressional Pc4 pulsation observed by three satellites in geostationary orbit near local midnight

We describe the observation of a magnetic pulsation with a period of 55 s, recorded at geostationary orbit by three satellites (ATS 6, SMS 1 and SMS 2) in the local time sector 2100–2400. We use magnetic data from all three spacecraft and also plasma data from ATS 6. The pulsation had a large compressional magnetic component which appeared to be balanced by pressure fluctuations in the hot ring current plasma which were in antiphase with the magnetic variations. This allows the wave to be guided along a field line. From the plasma data we are also able to obtain estimates of the field line displacement and hence the electric field, which enables us to conclude that this is a second harmonic field line resonance. We find that the wave has a very short East-West (E-W) wavelength (m?100) and a westward azimuthal group velocity of about 30 km s^?1. The most probable source for this wave is a bounce resonant interaction with ring current protons. The characteristics of this wave are in many ways similar to those of giant pulsations observed on the ground. ATS 6 was near the inner edge of the ring current electrons and as the wave converted the 10 keV electron Alfvén layer back and forth across ATS 6, we were able to estimate the Alfvén layer energy gradient and obtain a value of 1 keV in 1000 km. This gradient is considerably steeper than that predicted by a steady uniform convection electric field.     

Standardized Precipitation Index Reconstructed from Turkish Tree-Ring Widths

May–July Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) for the land area of most of Turkey and some adjoining regions are reconstructed from tree rings for the period 1251–1998. The reconstruction was developed from principal components analysis (PCA) of four Juniperus excelsa chronologies from southwestern and south-central Turkey and is based on reliable and replicable statistical relationships between climate and tree ring growth. The SPI reconstruction shows climate variability on both interannual and interdecadal time scales. The longest period of consecutive drought years in the reconstruction (SPI threshold ≤−1) is 2 yr. These occur in 1607–1608, 1675–1676, and 1907–1908. There are five wet events (SPI threshold ≥+1) of two consecutive years each (1330–1331, 1428–1429, 1503–1504, 1629–1630, and 1913–1914). A 5-yr moving average of the reconstructed SPI shows that two sustained drought periods occurred from the mid to late 1300s and the early to mid 1900s. Both episodes are characterized by low variability.     

Reducing sewage pollution in the Antarctic marine environment using a sewage treatment plant

Despite Antarctica being the largest pristine wilderness on Earth, many coastal Antarctic research stations release untreated sewage waste into the marine environment, which may have negative effects on local wildlife. In February 2003 a sewage treatment plant was installed at Rothera Research Station (Adelaide Island, Antarctic Peninsula). After one year of operation the sewage treatment plant had dramatically reduced the microbiological pollution in the near-shore marine environment around the outfall and seawater quality conformed to European Union Bathing Water Standards.